5 - The institutionalization of tradition: the early twentieth century and the lay nun

Summary

INTRODUCTION

In the decades that followed the Countess's tenure in Ceylon, Ceylon Buddhists continued to provide women with a place in which they could renounce lay life. As projects to re-establish the tradition of female renunciation increased in the early decades of the twentieth century, the vocation of women who had renounced their lay identity became institutionalized, perhaps after a hiatus of several hundred years. In this chapter, I explore traditional notions of the pious laywoman, notions that have shaped the vocation of the lay nun, and draw a contrast with older patterns of thought concerning the laity. I hope to build a picture of the changes that have superseded traditional ideas about gender, on the one hand, and the laity, on the other. In chapters 3 and 4, I showed how Buddhists from other cultures, including Europeans and Southeast Asians, transformed late nineteenth-century Buddhism in Ceylon. In this chapter, I describe a project that was intended to resuscitate Buddhism by elevating women and providing them with a place to renounce. The project was the brain child solely of Ceylon Buddhists; however, British sympathizers called attention to the project, thus popularizing it, while Burmese Buddhists provided the guidelines for the project, which today is the most well-known upāsikārāmaya in the island.

Though, as we saw in chapter 3, the Saňghamittā Upāsikārāmaya was a response to the specific changing social situation of late nineteenth-century Ceylon, Ceylon Buddhists, such as Dharmapāla, often invoked the Burmese lay nuns' example. Moreover, Burmese lay nuns were highly visible in Ceylon at that time; their example doubtless influenced the changing role of Buddhist women in the island.